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News on Labor & Economy
In November 2005, Amazon launched Mechanical Turk (AMT), a website where “requesters” can post tasks, called “Human Intelligence Tasks” or “HITs”, for workers to complete for pay. Workers are required […]
Uber manages a large, disaggregated workforce through its ridehail platform, one that delivers a relatively standardized experience to passengers while simultaneously promoting its drivers as entrepreneurs whose work is characterized […]
Internet-enabled technologies allow people to connect in unprecedented ways. Although everyday social practices are widespread and well known, these same tools are reconfiguring key aspects of work. Crowdsourcing and distributed […]
America’s nearly century-old approach to employment and labor law is at a crossroads. The gig economy has re-defined work for millions of people; people who value the flexibility and freedom […]
The development of a fast and reliable Internet, new technologies online payment systems, and changes in work structure that enable and demand flexible working patterns have driven a move to […]
The rise of the platform economy has been the subject of celebration and critique. Platform companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Postmates have been rightfully celebrated as positively disruptive, introducing much–needed […]
In the framework of the so-called “sharing economy”, the number of on-demand companies matching labour supply and demand is on the rise. These schemes may enlarge opportunities for people willing […]
This article examines the implications of electronic monitoring systems for organizational information flows and worker control, in the context of the U.S. trucking industry. Truckers, a spatially dispersed group of […]
Long-haul trucking is linked to almost every industry in America, yet somehow the working-class drivers behind big rigs remain largely hidden from public view. Gritty, inspiring, and often devastating oral […]
In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices […]